After some discussion in the last comic thread, I'm looking for input on how best to handle new story discussion threads.

We have a more diverse group here than we used to. There are:
1) People who check out the Twitch stream (live or recorded) and know what the next comic is looking like.
2) People who support the Patreon and see the finished comic a day ahead of the official release.
3) People who see the comic for the first time when it's officially released to the MT website.

Twitch people can (and often do) comment on the comic-in-progress in the Twitch chat. Patreon supporters can (and often do) comment on the finished comic on the Patreon site. And people who wait for the full release of the comic can (and often do) comment on the megatokyo facebook page.

That is all totally cool. At the same time, I think we get better discussion here on the forums, and I want this to be a place where people want to be. That means somehow providing a place where people can talk about the comic as soon as they have something to say, while also being respectful of not spoilering folks who haven't seen it yet.

I'm pretty sure there is no perfect solution that is going to make everyone happy. But that doesn't mean that there isn't a better way, and I'd like your input in helping find that.

One idea would be to start a new comic thread when Fred starts working on it. I could edit the thread title to include the development status and then edit it again with the official comic name once it's done.
[15xx] [Fred is currently drawing this]
[15xx] [Posted to Patreon]
[15xx] Piro and Miho Live Happily Ever After

I could also edit the 1st post similarly.

I'd really like to hear your thoughts and ideas though. This is a community, and we want to make it as right for as many of us as we can.

I guess if the forum software had this kind of possibilities... Something like a dynamic depth of view - every user could freely choose what tier out of the three they want to post and read, and somehow automatically the discussion could merge into the more public thread (so it would start visible to twitch tier first, then enlarge to include Patreon tier, and finally become visible to all when posted to main site.) I don't know how to do that pleas just treat this as contribution to the brain storming. The Patreon tier could be actually independent of the twitch one, since twitch people can see the way to the comic but not the final product (am I right?). but the important thing would be to be able to make the tier change freely and at any time.

Maybe it's just a 'comment here after posted here' outlook, but having a thread here after the 'final official done comic' is posted on the main site seems a good fit. Not that doing it the way it's been done is the best fit of course.

For those watching X commenting on X, there's a likeminded group, but only that group is involved. That those who want to discuss Twitch matters would be there discussing it with others in the same frame of mind for example. That it would be those who wanted it all would participate on all, to those who wait only for main site and the forum thread.

Although having it on forum with in-progress headings as it goes along seems a good idea too. The title change as it goes on would let anyone who's been involved in IRC, Twitch, Patreon, Facebook join in when they feel the time is correct, depending on what they wanted to see or hear from others and share with them. And that for other people until there's a main site posted comic, and a comic title actually given to the thread, those who didn't want to see earlier things would be able to stay back until then.

Well easiest to implement and not requiring much mod attention, would be if people who watched twitch, and wanted to talk about it here, would have some way to have a thread for themselves, until the comic gets posted to main site, and same for the Patreon users. Kinda like a 'beta tester's area but intermixed with the thread on SD, or, starting in a separate area for which one has to register, and then moved to SD and merged with whatever the ordinary users managed to come up with.
edit (sorry writing posts on mobile and with time pressure is kinda hard): this forum also seems to be adult enough to not need excessive enforcement of the rules for this... I mean, it's for people by the people. I don't mind seeing twitch or Patreon users discuss it here before it's posted free. I have enough clue to not post my thoughts before I see it free. Speaking for myself only ofc.

Last edited by cidjen on Sun Feb 18, 2018 7:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Post the subject of the new comic on Patreon with [Spoilers] in the title. Once the comic has been posted to the website, remove said tag from title.

If people want to spoil it for themselves, you can't stop them

--------------------'The secret of lesbian porn is the self-insertion fantasy, the feeling of "You know, the right dick could turn those clam-licking hotties into hot wet sex fiends... and I am that brave dick." Keep that in mind' - Dom

My vote would be basically an extension of how I voted when the question was just about Patreon: go ahead and start the 15xx as early as desired, to accommodate twitch/patreon/whoever users. The agreement then being that no discussion of 15xx should go in the 15x(x-1) thread (until 15xx actually shows up on megatokyo.com), not even "vague" info like "Wow you should see how hot + studly Yanagisawa looks in the next one! Woo!" (My feeling is that it's easy enough for me to avoid the 15xx thread, and thus "accidentally spoilering" myself, until I see that 15xx has actually been posted to the main site; the flip side then should be that there's no need to post any discussion of the planned/in-progress/new comic in the preceding thread.)

Renaming the thread is nice if the mods really have the time / energy for it; I don't personally consider it necessary though. (Again if I still see 15x(x-1) on the main site I just don't click on the 15xx thread... (edit pretty much regardless of the thread subtitle) or I do so quickly and then click right back to the Board Index just to clear out the "unread posts" markers. )

Conflict of Interest / Internal Bias disclosure:
I will on rare occasions go to twitch to see what is going on, but have never been to patreon. It seems reasonable enough to me to allow those who do actively participate in those places to discuss the pending comic in a thread here, since it's trivial for me to avoid such a thread.

My two cents' worth: GreyWolfe's idea is the best -- it's simple to implement for the mods, and if people want to spoil the surprise for themselves ...... well..... if they get unhappy, it's their own darn fault.

Said Phoebe Snow
About to go
Upon a trip to Buffalo:
"My gown stays white
From morn 'til night
Upon the Road of Anthracite".

Advertising slogan from the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad
1853-1960
Requiescat in pace.

If someone posts a WIP thread like I did, and it never grows beyond first post, it's totally ok by me that it'll be deleted when the proper / non-WIP one appears. Up to the mods to decide if it's worth continuing, if it grows larger than one.

If someone posts a WIP thread like I did, and it never grows beyond first post, it's totally ok by me that it'll be deleted when the proper / non-WIP one appears.

It was worth a try, and thanks for doing that. I just didn't work out. I've deleted the WIP thread just to avoid confusion.

The Twitch chat is where a lot of the work-in-progress chat happens about the comic, and that's probably why this didn't take off here. Fred's most common time for streaming comic work on Twitch is from roughly 9pm Eastern Time (USA) until he gets too tired to draw straight. But he does commonly draw at other times as well, especially on the weekends. Just off the top of my head, I can think of regulars on the Twitch chat from France, Sweden, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Guam, Japan, Australia, and even Texas. So even if you aren't in Fred's timezone, he often draws at times that work for people around the world. Maybe some of them would work for you too.

I'd suggest at least making a Twitch account and following Fred's channel. You can set Twitch to notify you by email when Fred starts drawing. That way, at least you'll know. And if it's a good time for you to join in, then you're all more than welcome.https://www.twitch.tv/fredrin